Many materials, particularly comestibles, are cut or chopped on a substrate, such as a wooden block, counter surface, and the like. The sharp blade at at least one end can easily cut or scratch the substrate unless the knife is used with great care. Even with metallic surfaces, scratching is possible; and china, though not as vulnerable, can also be scratched with knives used at the table. This problem has been encountered for at least nearly a century and efforts have been made to prevent cutting or scratching of the substrate. This has been accomplished by having the knife blade, usually front and rear, widened and projecting slightly from the sharp cutting edge of the blade. The first, and still the best, form of runners are described for a cake knife in the old patent to Hurd, U.S. Pat. No. 527,175, of 1894. Recently a patent to Honma, U.S. Pat. No. 3,842,501, Oct. 1974, develops a plurality of sightly projecting, blunt surfaces all along the blade. Similar solutions to the safety razor blade have also been proposed but this is, of course, very remote and not strictly analogous to knives for cutting comestibles, to which the present invention is directed.
While the Hurd and Honma patents referred to do in fact prevent cutting or scratching of surfaces where comestibles are being cut or chopped, they have one very serious drawback. With very springy materials, such as cakes, for which the Hurd knife was developed, the knives are practically useful. However, for the cutting of other comestibles, such as meats, which are much tougher and can form thin strips where they do not encounter the recessed blade, satisfactory results are difficult to obtain. It is with an improved non-cutting and non-scratching knife which is useful for a much wider range of comestibles that the present invention deals.